…and I love ‘em bastards.  The “One iPod Per Child” is pure genius!

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This is the third time I do my taxes by myself.  I think by now I’d still have an accountant do my taxes if my CPA didn’t screw me over about three years ago. 

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• Remove Konfabulator a.k.a. Yahoo Widgets.  It’s a memory and network bandwidth hog.  This is more apparent when you remote desktop to a machine with Widgets running.  Yuck.
• Remove Google Desktop.  Ditto.  I love Google, but I’ve suffered long enough with their Desktop Search.  It slows down my machine, not to mention the search mechanism is spotty with Outlook (where I use the search function most of the time).  To be honest, as far as Outlook search plugins, Lookout is WAY better.

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I keep a very short list of my favorite movies of all time; it’s so short it consists of the following:

- The Shawshank Redemption
- Citizen Kane

American History X is probably one of those movies that will simply blow you away. The movie is so “powerful” (for the lack of a better word) that it leaves you speechless as the end credits begin to roll. I was expecting a good movie–considering this is top-billed by Edward Norton (in his Academy Award-nominated performance)–but I wasn’t expecting to be floored by the overall experience. Norton’s performance is just simply amazing, to say the least.

So what has this got to do with my “list?” Well, it just made it to #3.

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I just finished watching “King Kong.”  Man, I want those 3 hours of my life back.  Is it me, or is watching King Kong akin to watching porn?  It’s got no story (OK maybe a little story) with just one unneeded action sequence after another.  No explanation about who those aborigines are…not to mention why the hell everything in “Skull” island is HUGE. 

I KNOW it’s a damn science-fiction movie, but come on, not all viewers just wanted to see a huge ape running around like some numbnut…I mean, I see that at my workplace everyday! 

But you know what?  Naomi Watts is in the movie…I take everything back what I just said.

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I just finished watching this week’s episode of “Bones” and I couldn’t help but notice the blatant product placements for Apple…there’s, like, 10 of them 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays in that lab! 

Bastards.  I envy them.

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…I want one!

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0602videoipod.html

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Below is AlienBees’ response regarding my observation on their strobes in low-power mode.

—

Dexter,

The AlienBees lights, as well as most other continuously variable output flash units including White Lightnings, affect power reduction by reducing the voltage impressed upon the flash capacitor bank.  It is a characteristic of a xenon flash tube that the color temperature of the emitted light will fall as the voltage applied to it is reduced.  Paul Buff included a circuit in his designs that helps to lessen this effect, but it is not possible to eliminate it.  The AlienBees and White Lightning products will produce output color temperatures of between 5500 and 5600 Kelvins at full power.  The color temperature will drop about 250 to 300 K as the power is reduced to minimum.  The color temperature output for a unit in proper working condition should be reasonably consistent for any given power setting.  At near-minimum power settings, the accuracy of the output power as well as the color temperature consistency can be adversely by the light output of the modeling lamp: it’s a good idea either to defeat the MODEL READY function, or to turn the modeling lamp OFF after setting up the shot: incandescent lamps simply CAN’T turn off instantaneously, or even with repeatable characteristics.

I noticed that the forum thread did include the appropriate warnings about measuring color temperature: the surroundings and the reflector characteristics have as much to do with the measurement as does the light itself.  In addition, off-axis measurements, even using the native xenon lamp, are more likely to be more characteristic of any nearby object than of the lamp itself.  I think the bottom line, here, is this: how do your shots look?

Best regards,

Doc (for Joe Diebler)

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DAH has always been one of my photography heroes; I have a copy of his “Cuba” book.  I was surprised as I was reading the latest NatGeo Travel magazine article regarding digital photographs from renowned photographers, DAH among them.  I had to read the section about DAH twice.  You see, he used to use Leica M cameras…I would think that he would be the last person I know who would switch to digital cameras, given his workflow. 

Good for him, I say…not that he needs my blessings for him to choose what medium suits him.

 David Alan Harvey on NikonNet

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1001 reasons why you want to be my boyfriend

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